2012-10-05

Here is some feedback from testing on 2012-10-05:

These items are not in any order

Install issue

There's no 'install' mechanism for the tool, and the tool depends
visualize_mem_tree.py being on the python path or in the same
directory as the trace_analyze.py script.
I tried hard-linking trace_analyze to a private 'bin' directory, but
got a python error doing this. Using a symlink worked OK.
If visualize_mem_tree.py is not used separately, it might be worth
considering integrating everything into a single script. (or not -
I'm not sure).

Answer

trace_analyze and visualize_mem_tree are now merged.
(should we add an 'install' mechanism anyway?)

Extra rings

The chart for my kernel shows some unexpected rings. Specifically,
I'm building in /home/tbird/work/mem/build/panda-torvalds
My chart has an inner ring of 'build' (showing 100% of memory), a
second ring of 'panda-torvalds' (showing 100% of memory), then
a third ring where directories start to get broken out.

See this chart:

Is this correct?

Answer

Fixed

Overlapping annotations

The annotations showing the name and size of the ring segments overlap
sometimes, making some of them difficult or impossible to read.
See above chart.

Availability to show plot interactively

The tool by default produces a png in the current directory. It would
be nice to be able to control the output format and location, or allow
the user to directly enter matplotlibs interactive viewer.
(i.e. pylab.show()).

Description of how to get trace

The instructions should includes steps for how to get the trace for the dynamic analysis.
It looks like a comprehensive section is started in Documentation/memory_accounting
section 3.2.1, so maybe this feedback is premature. Maybe a few short steps on the
wiki page for people to get their first trace would be good.